Sputnik, AFP and Prensa Latina

The newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, September 15, 2024, p. 19

Bogota. Colombian President Gustavo Petro said yesterday that a plan to assassinate him is underway and that this could happen in the next three months because he is an order from the mafia.

Petro made these statements to 5,000 people attending the National Popular Assembly held yesterday at the headquarters of the National University. Representatives of various social organizations attended the meeting, which was convened by the labor unions, in order to discuss social reforms in the country.

I’ll tell you: with the money they bought two dump trucks (trucks). One of them must have already arrived. Their idea is to fill a dump truck with dynamite and explosives and with inside information about my routines blow it up as I pass by. That’s the death operation.the president denounced.

The president said that the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the US ambassador in Colombia alerted him about a threat against his life.

The plan, according to Petro, includes the acquisition of rifles in the territory of the former M-19 (Democratic Alliance Movement); one of the participants allegedly revealed the operation to an American lawyer, who sent the details to the DEA. Petro said that part of the financing for this attack would have its origins in Dubai.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez reiterated support for Petro’s government: All our support and solidarity to President Gustavo Petro in the face of coup attempts against his legitimate government. The plans to destabilize Colombia are part of the right-wing attack against progressive governments.expressed in X.

“The order has already been given, ‘for the next three months: either overthrow the president or assassinate him, one of the two,'” the president paraphrased.

Meanwhile, Colombia follows the trail of Israeli spyware, Pegasusacquired by the government in 2021 to intercept opponents, in an investigation that brings to light a past of scandals over illegal wiretapping, common to several Latin American countries.

The program, which remotely accesses a phone’s messages, calls and files, may have been purchased for $11 million during the term of right-wing former President Ivan Duque, Israeli journalist Gur Megiddo reported in March.

This month, President Gustavo Petro backed the complaint, reading a classified document from the state-run Financial Intelligence and Analysis Unit (UIAF) on national television, containing details about the purchase of Pegasus from the Israeli manufacturer NSO Group.